


take our hands and lock em up

by starryeyedgiant



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, STW AU, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 21:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20015416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedgiant/pseuds/starryeyedgiant
Summary: the whole world is ending, and the Dreemurr children know it. they've known it ever since they got back to the surface and found out what kind of place it was.it's something everyone has to survive, sooner or later.





	1. morning.

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a special short fic based on an au i made with my friend Aisu, in which Frisk, Chara, and Asriel use the last lingering remnants of their determination to create a new world where humans and monsters were never in conflict—but in doing so, they take on a far greater burden than they can actually bear.
> 
> in this fic, i explore the circumstances and pressures leading up to that decision—and exactly what would have to happen for that terrible mistake to never be made; for their future to take a different route, perhaps a happier one.
> 
> (the title is taken from the song [begin/again](https://soundcloud.com/kanayadasgray/beginagain-undertale-chara-fansong), by kan.

It's a cold Monday, and the world is ending. There aren't a lot of vehicles in the village, so Asriel and Chara and Frisk have to sit together in the trailer of one of the trucks as it trundles carefully, haltingly, down the mountain path. The suspension is about as good as it could be, but they're still jolted up and down constantly. The rattling makes Frisk give up on talking out loud.

So it's only Chara who knows that they've been playing I Spy for the entire trip.

_ I spy, with my little eye... _ Frisk thinks at them.

_ * Is it gold? _ Chara asks immediately.

_ Sooort of. What kind of gold? _

_ * It's all just pure gold. _

_ Like... a gold coin, or _

_ * That. A coin. _

_...You're correct! It's that one over there, heads up. _

_ Wanna play again? _

Chara groans out loud, forcefully enough to prevent Frisk from chuckling through it.

"Oh, what is it this time?" asks—

_ He said it was okay to call him that _ .

_ * He didn't mean it. _

—their brother, his soft paws tucked tightly into the folds of his formal robes, looking a little irritable.

_ I think he was okay when we started out. _

"There's nothing in here but gold," Chara mutters, their voice nearly drowned out by the rumbling of the trailer beneath them.

"Aw, thanks," says their brother. "Which one am I? Gold, or nothing?"

Chara immediately shuts up.

_ Hey! _

_ I'm not answering that. _

_ * Then don't. _

Frisk gradually unclenches their face and gives Asr

_ * ... _

a thumbs up. The bumping of the trailer makes their hand jump up and down.

_ * It's fine. He said it to make you happy. _

_ * Just call him whatever you want, I guess. _

_ Hm. _

_ I spy, with my little eye... _

_ * I can literally tell where your eyes are looking. _

_ So you know the answer? _

_ * I wasn't paying attention. _

"It's the same thing, in the end," their brother says. "This sucks."

Frisk nods, but it's hard to tell with all the shaking.

"Why do these humans want all this gold, anyway?" he goes on. "What are they going to do with it?"

_ * We've been over this. _

_ Why don't you tell him that? _

_ * He's just complaining because he's bored. _

_ * And so am I. _

Frisk isn't so sure.  _ He just... he wants you to hear him, I think. _

_ * That makes no sense. _

_ * That doesn't make any sense, Frisk. _

_ * You don't understand anything. _

Their brother just kind of leans against them, his ears flopping on top of their head and softly vibrating. "Hey. Say more things."

"Why?" Chara asks without thinking.

"You drag me all the way out of that mountain and now you wo'n't even entertain me," he snorts. "What are you two making faces about in there?"

"Uh..."

_ He wants to talk to you. _

_ * No, he wants to talk to you. _

_ He wants to talk to either of us, and I can't talk. _

_ * Then we shall sit here in silence for the rest of eternity. _

_ * This is why I didn't want to go, you know. _

_ You can't just keep pretending you don't exist for ever. _

_ * Not for ever. Just until we die. _

"Whatever," says their brother. "I'm going to sleep right here."

He's gotten bigger over the last few years. They feel the vibrations of the road through him, his light half-metal, half-magic bones pressing against their heavy, human ones.

Frisk lifts a hand and pats his head. Their fingers sink into his white fur.

_ * Hey. _

_ What? _

He's not asleep. They can't see his face from here, but he doesn't really move.

_ * ...Fine. Nothing. _

His touch. His presence. Something almost like calm. They don't like it. It's not right. But...

Frisk's shallow breathing gradually melds with Chara's sharp inhale and laboured exhale. It's a long while before any of them move, insulated from the rattling and bouncing by each other's presence.

It's not eternity, but... if eternity had nothing worse than this in store... if this were as bad as it ever got, it'd be nice.

Chara knows it's going to get worse, though.


	2. afternoon.

It's a drowsy midday in March, and the world is ending. School hasn't opened this year, so they're just lying facedown on the floor together. It's not summer yet. They're just practising.

Flowey gets tired of it pretty quickly. His body--a new body, an imitation of something that belonged to some one else--it gets uncomfortable in certain positions, like being facedown on the ground. He forgets whether that used to be the case, back when he had the other set of two arms and two legs.

Anyway, unlike these two layabouts, he has work to do.

"You can still study even if there's no school, you know," he reminds them pointedly, sitting up. There's a faint, mechanical whir that only he can hear as servos bend in his spine. It feels so smooth and easy. It's not familiar at all, though. Should it be?

"Mm," mumbles Frisk. (Flowey can tell immediately. He knows both their voices well.) "In... in a minute," they say eventually, taking the time to line up words in their head.

He's in a mood to-day, or something like that. Maybe it's a persistent twinge in his right arm that he can't be bothered to see Alphys about. Maybe it's the unfamiliar heat. Maybe it's all the stuff happening around them--how he's the only one of the three of them who really hears what's going on--with the gold tax, the human inspectors, the water supply, the doomed treaty negotiations.

Frisk asks less and less about the human meetings, nowadays. He can tell they're spooked by what they hear. And Chara... they never bother to talk to him, do they? They just hang around in silence, and that's one reason Flowey knows for certain he's still Flowey and will never be anything else, because it's so easy to resent them for that.

Maybe it's just that to-day is the first day in a while where he hasn't gotten anything new to worry about.

"Ugh!" he groans at last, as he gets up to sit at the desk in the lounge. "What are you even doing here?"

"Just wanna be around you." Frisk doesn't really move.

That answer comes really easily for something he knows is false, and he's starting to resent that too.

"Well, since you're having so much fun, you can help me do my homework," he says, and he heaves out the giant textbook of law history Toriel gave him for his most recent birthday, and drops it on the table with a thud. It's for show, mostly. Nothing inside is new to him at this point.

It's pretty amazing to see Frisk drag themself up onto the desk without apparently activating the muscles in their legs. He tries not to laugh.

"The History of Humans and Monsters," they slowly read. "An Introductory Text by Gerson Boom."

"Yeah," he says. Then, after a moment, "It's a book. You turn the page, like this..."

Frisk lets him turn the page without responding. Then, "Gerson Boom. The History of Humans and Monsters. An introductory text."

"Oh, how inventive! You're doing wonderfully, my child." He hasn't lost his talent for mimicking voices.

Frisk flicks him on the nose. It doesn't hurt.

"Are you going to read it yourself, or not?"

"Already diiiid."

"Really." He has an idea. "Where did the first boss monster live?"

Frisk's face goes blank for a moment, because they're asking Chara, of course, who's actually read the older edition of this book.

"Mmmmmmaniapoto... Waitomo...?"

"Correct!" Flowey announces cheerily. "Or so you'd think from the book. But actually, the first boss monster lived with the Moriori, on the Chatham Islands, unrecorded by ol' Gerson. Look it up on the website."

He grins at their confused expression. "That's 1-0 for me."

"Are we keeping score...?"

"Next question! What year did the first non-indigenous monsters arrive in Aotearoa?"

This takes Frisk a bit longer. Chara never had that much of a memory for dates.

"1865," they eventually say, plopping their chin on the desk.

He beams. "Congratulations! You're wrong." He flips the textbook to page 144, the edges of the pages catching lightly on his claws. Unfamiliar. "Look here. The first human Chinese immigrants came over in 1865, but the first ship with a monster on it made landing in 1868. Good guess, though, Chara."

They make a face at him--ah! He knows that deep frown. They're definitely here now.

"2-0. Ooh, I've got an early lead." Knowing things feels just great. He lifts the book towards him, balancing it on its edges and peering over the top. ¨Let's go for best of five."

This isn't the kind of game they used to play, is it? It can't have felt like this. This is a feeling he's learned to have.

He's having fun. Things are different now.

"Let's go for an easier one. How old is this town? Hometown, I mean."

Chara blinks, frowns, looks pensively to the side; then fixes their gaze stock-still, concentrating. Little finger-twitches give away their thoughts.

Their brother watches them with a smug tilt of the head. "Too hard? I can give you a hint--"

"Two hundred and fifty-eight. No, two hundred and fifty-seven years, and about three months."

He snorts at that. "So confident! No, no, you're way off. What are you talking about? We've only been on the surface for about two years, sibling dearest."

"That depends on how one defines Hometown," Chara insists, their voice hushed, hurried, out-of-breath. "Though the structures of the past were torn down in our absence from the surface, this site was chosen specifically because it is the selfsame land that was--that was the home of the first settlement for refugees during the war. Their lives were here, and their graves still are, out there to the east. Even before that--those refugee dwellings were converted from more rudimentary seasonal homes and facilities that were occupied during parts of summer, when the golden flowers bloomed. The village has often lain empty between occupations, and often changed its name and purpose, but has still remained a village. To this place, the absence of monsterkind was simply a long winter that has now ended."

Flowey scoffs. Another person might have been impressed--praised Chara, gasped in awe, pretended to understand. But he's not that person. He knows defensiveness when he sees it.

"It's not that deep, idiot," he says with a smile he can't contain. Making them mad got them to come out, so now he's going to do it some more. "We built here because there's a vein of fresh water we can tap into, and the ground is pretty flat. It's not even really on the same site as those other buildings you were talking about--it couldn't be. This town is so much bigger."

Chara seems perturbed, lacing their fingers tight. "So what? It's still a lineage. It's still--there's a connection. It still exists to protect monsterkind. M--Toriel is still in charge, and she has to remember..."

"Look, Chara," he sneers their name, certain he's finally got them, "your foot and your knee are connected. Does that make them the same thing?"

Chara stares at them for a moment. Then, "My foot is connected to my knee? That's news to me."

What? "Yeah? There's your shin connecting them—"

"So you're telling me the foot bone's connected to the knee bone—"

"No, you IDIOT—" The speakers in his throat crackle, the audio clipping with the strain of conveying his shout. He takes a moment to recalibrate, patting down the fake fur on his head.

He tries a more level tone. It's not like they could ever make him really angry, anyway. "You're being obtuse on purpose, Chara, and your singing sucks. I'm just saying you can't pretend everything is just the same as the past, all right? Everyone around here used to do that, and it messed them right up. They learned that lesson, so why are you and Frisk trying so HARD to ACT like everything's just the way it used to be?"

He's not upset. He's different now. Everything is different now, and he has to be the responsible one.

He puts his head in his hands. The sound, the feeling of it, a skull of heavy alloy going 'bonk'—it's hollow. It's fake.

Chara—no, is that Frisk?—oh, how would he know?—places a hand on the table. It's that reaching-out kind of thing they do, where they don't want to force contact but want to offer it. Like a handshake for babies. Ugh.

"I just—"

"I just thought—" Frisk says, out loud, as they rarely do—"if you'd talk, you'd see that not everything is—is different, right? Because—you still care about each other, and all you do is avoid each other and snipe at each other, even though you went through all this trouble to be together again—"

"Again," he says flatly.

He shuts the book.

He slams his head against the edge of the table, once. Twice. Hollow clangs. Servos and pain receptors protest ineffectually.

Frisk shoots up out of their chair, their eyes wide. They grab him, one arm against his torso, the other feeling for the soft buzz of the alarm going off in the side of his neck. He doesn't move as they move around the table, gingerly, to encircle him with their arms.

"I'm NOT Asriel," he says, matter-of-factly.

"Y—y—you're not Flowey, either," Frisk mumbles into the side of his head. He's surprised they can manage words. "You—you're not just that."

"Then what am I, idiot?" He's smiling again. His laughter is silent, buried in the crook of their arm as he shakes. "What am I?"

They don't say anything.

So that's all right, then. He just sits there, enduring the tightness of their embrace until Alphys pulls up outside in her great big truck, and he hears her hurrying inside, cursing the heat of the sun and the weight of her medical equipment.

He can deal with this. This fake, misdirected affection. It's not so bad.

There isn't much time left, anyway.


	3. evening.

The sun is setting on the anniversary of the exodus, and the world is ending.

Frisk, Chara, their brother too—they all find excuses to stay home. Honestly, not that many people are attending this year. There's too much to do. Construction and maintenance work. Farming, cleaning, and taking care of children. Protests and occupations and jail visits. Mum is only going because she has to—the star festival wouldn't be much of an event without her.

"Remember to take care of each other," she says. "And don't open the door to anyone you don't know, especially not humans. My spells will hide you as long as you don't speak. I love you very much."

She kisses them each goodbye, hiding her disappointment, and promises to be home soon. As her old car trundles out of the driveway, they stand there on the porch, waving.

"It's... it's all clear," Frisk hesitantly announces, once her headlights vanish down the mountain slope. The thin, chilly evening air carries the sound of the engine back up to them for a few minutes after.

Tonight's sky is special, somehow. The blue of evening, the orange of sunset. The stars are already whispering behind the clouds.

"It's a good time to make wishes, right?" they say.

Their brother shrugs. "I guess. It's not like anyone hears but us."

Frisk is already wishing, their eyes closed. They wish for this to be over. They wish for something better. They wish, wish, wish.

_ * That's not very exact, _ Chara tries to joke.  _ * Do you need an editor? I'll help you reword. _

Frisk frowns.  _ We'll do it together _ , they think back.

And they turn from the cold, from the stars, from the familiar sunset, and step back inside.

Their brother hangs out on the porch for a moment longer. Then he follows them. Frisk hears him slide the latch shut and pull the blinds down over the windows.

"...So we're doing it now," he says, as he comes up behind them. He doesn't sound really enthusiastic about it. It was so hard, getting him to believe it would work at all. But it will, Frisk knows.

"Yes," is all they say.

They trot through the corridors to the room the three of them share. The door creaks open, familiar in its sound. From the window, a square of orange sunlight falls half on the makeshift triple bunk, and half on the chest of drawers next to it.

They slide open one of their drawers and stick their hand deeeeeep inside, worming past all the socks and gloves and fidget toys, until they get their fingers around the wooden back and pull the whole thing out. Their brother takes it from them, lowering it to the ground There, hidden in the gap behind, is the old wooden box with its tarnished latch.

They take the box out and put it on the floor, and then they pop it open. (The lock stopped working long ago.) Red, red light comes pouring out.

It seems like a lifetime ago that Frisk and Chara made these together—forced them into reality to save their lives. Last dreams, wishes crystallised in solid form. They've never been able to do it since. (Back then, a lifetime wasn't so long.)

Frisk picks up one of the red marbles and almost drops it. It's hot, hot, hot. They're cold, cold, cold.

_ * As cold as a corpse, _ Chara observes morbidly.

But they have a right to be morbid. The world is ending, after all. Frisk feels it now, more than ever.

"This isn't like resetting," they explained to their brother, once, long ago. "I promised—this isn't going to put us back. I'd never, ever go back."

He hadn't seemed convinced, and he doesn't seem convinced now. He grabs a handful of the marbles and jingles them in his soft, furry hand, round and round. There's red reflected in the lenses of his eyes.

"...Isn't this kind of familiar?" he asks. He's not talking about resetting, this time, but something different.

Frisk can tell, because Chara reacts with a cold, electric fear. "No," they say through Frisk's mouth. "No one's going to—no one will die, this time."

Frisk nods quickly, in agreement. "We'll save everyone. Even us."

Quickness helps with their stammering, and injects conviction into their voice. Quickness focuses their thoughts. Quickness will get them through this—like a lizard running on water, never breaking the surface.

If they're quick, Mum will never have the chance to come home and see them doing this.

How long has it been since they were last afraid of that...?

They grab the rest of the dreams and grip them tight, so tight that they feel their heartbeat thumping in their fists. and they start to hum. They feel a familiar sensation stirring in their chest as they pick up the rest of the dreams. Their SOUL quivers and shines through their body, for the first time in years.

They want to get this over with.

_ * Frisk, _ says Chara in their head.

_ * Since the world is ending... _

_ What? _

_ * I want you to remember that he's doing this for you. And so am I. _

_ That doesn't make sense. _ Frisk tries to concentrate. They need to remember everything, everything the people they care about wanted, everything they longed for, everything they were afraid of. Mum, and Asgore. Undyne, Alphys, Papyrus. Catty and Bratty, Mettaton and Napstablook. The man behind the grey door. The six SOULs who they only met for a moment each. Everyone...

And there's something else, a secret, that they have to push down. Down below the surface, so they can skim quickly over it.

They remember what Chara wanted, now.

_ You wanted to be alive, and for him to be safe. And he wanted to not feel empty, to not have done all those things he did. And you want our family to be okay. Isn't that why you're doing this? _

Red-hot determination. It seeps into their veins, their special kind of magic. It's a power that only the three of them truly understand.

_ * I mean—of course I desire those things. _

Why is Chara still holding off? They should be helping. Whispering reminders, putting mental diagrams together with all their favourite names and numbers.

_ * But... listen, _ they say instead.  _ * After what he said last time—I was thinking. And I wanted to be sure of something. Are you also doing this for yourself? Is this something you really want? _

_ Yes, it is _ , Frisk replies instantly.

But Chara remains distant. Frisk can't pull them into the flow.

_ What do you mean? _ They're getting worried now. Their free hand scrapes restlessly against the wooden floor.  _ About doing this for me? _

_ * Is that so strange a suggestion? _

_ * You've always chosen the path we take. I trust you. _

_ * That's what made me decide this was worth it. _

Frisk shakes their head, suddenly, violently.  _ It's worth it because of you _ . _ Because of you! You deserve—you died, you deserve to live! _

Their brother looks up at the motion. "What—having second thoughts? Isn't it kind of late?"

_ I just need you to promise me something, _ says Chara. Still detached. Still not helping.

They shake their head again. They can't—they can't focus on this and hold two conversations all at once.  _ Just stop it! Are you trying to mess this up? Do you want things to keep being this way? Do you want to be dead? Do you want Mum and Asriel to die? _

Chara goes very, very quiet.

It doesn't help.

"You get it, right?" they say aloud to their brother, their voice high and fierce. "You're not going to change your mind. We'll remake the world, and you'll get back e-e-everything you were supposed to have. Everything y-you've been through, everything that hurt you, all the things y-you can't f-fo-forgive yourself for, it'll go away." Their voice is shaking badly, hoarse and uneven.

They need him to say yes. They need him to say he understands. That he wants this. That he needs this.

The dreams have already started to dissolve in his hand. The red light coursing through him makes it looks like he's melting inside. Frisk reaches for him, gripping his fingers tightly in theirs, completing the circuit with a shock of energy.

He looks at them dully.

"I guess," he says. "Why are you asking me now? It's kind of late."

They stare painfully back at him, then break the gaze.

The heat fills their SOUL. Red light fills the room like dense fog, overpowering the soft, waning sunlight.

Chara comes back to them, cautious and distant. Frisk can barely hear their voice over the pounding in their own head.

_ * I know you are keeping something from me. I know you have a plan that is different from the one you shared with us. _

Quickness. Urgency. Frisk whispers out loud. "I'm not doing a-anything, I swear, I swear."

_ * Then just promise me— _

"I promise, I promise, anything!" They can't wait any longer. Anything to get Chara to come along.

_ Promise me you wo'n't leave. Promise me you will not make the same mistake. _

"Yes! I promise!"

Chara reaches out. Frisk can feel them again. Eagerly they show them the plan, the wishes, the beginning framework of the world. Unfinished, it unfolds like the surface of a pearl, like the sketch of a drawing, like a story with a happy ending.

But Chara sifts through it, nimble fingers dipping below the surface and catching on something that Frisk wanted to hide.

How did they know?

_ * You're lying, _ Chara says, and then seven stars shoot up from the palms of the children into the sky, and the world ends.


	4. the answer to the riddle.

The end of the world is surprisingly gentle. The sky, resplendent with stars, swims all around them. The heat is gone, and the cold is gone. The earth is gone, and the house is gone, too.

Frisk lies on their back and squeezes their eyes shut to try and stop the tears.

_ What did you do? _ They can't speak aloud right now.  _ What did you do? _

"I did it too," says their brother, right beside them. He's stargazing, it seems, his arms folded behind his head.

_ * We released that power. _

"It wouldn't have done any good, anyway."

_ Everyone's going to die. Everyone's dead because I messed up. _

"Idiot," their brother says. "Not everything is because of you."

_ * We both died long ago. _

_ * You nearly tricked us into helping you do the same thing. _

It's eerie, how Chara doesn't even sound upset.

Frisk doesn't know what to say.

Somehow, they just feel like telling the truth.

_ I lied to you. I  _

"I figured that," their brother interrupts. "D'you think you're a good liar? I just thought, if Chara wanted it too, I might as well go along."

_ * I... I thought it would be for the best. _

_ * To repair the damage I did. _

_ * ...I still hold that would have been right. _

Frisk groans.

_ I don't understand why you stopped me. _

_ I was ready. Everything was perfect. We would've been alive together. Just you'd be a happy family, and I'd be somewhere else. _

_ Holding things together. _

_ * Because I used to believe I existed to be a martyr, _ Chara says.  _ * I was wrong. You know that. I don't understand why you thought this would work. _

"Because I hate you and want to make sure everything you do fails," their brother contributes.

Frisk groans again and rolls over. They taste rug.

Slowly, the galaxy of stars fades. The end of the world is over.

They're back at home. The sun has set, and it's getting chilly.

"What're we supposed to do now?" Frisk mumbles. "The dreams'r gone. 'Vrything's still the same."

They don't want to be here. They don't want to get up. What's left for them to do?

_ * You're our family, _ Chara reminds them.  _ * Just stop trying to get away from us. _

_ * Besides, those dreams cannot have gone to waste. _

_ * Whatever wishes you had in your heart... _

_ * They must have come true. _

Frisk groans even louder than before.

"It failed. We're still here. Everything's terrible. I don't want anything. Leave me alone."

Chara falls silent again.

But Frisk couldn't have said that at a worse time, because right then, their brother sits up, his ears perked. And a moment later, with a characteristic rumble and a flash of headlights through the window, they hear the little car turn off the driveway and pull into the garage.

"Mum's back early," their brother says, and with an excitement that surprises Frisk, he leaps up and sprints for the door.


End file.
